Beauty of Destiny
by catodactyl
Summary: Minato's will is weakening, and the seal is slowly breaking; which means Nyx is back on the prowl. Yu is a likely candidate to become the next Seal, and Nyx and Mitsuru both know that. Now the Investigation Team and the old members of SEES have to find a way to seal the abomination away for good or else the world will be engulfed in darkness. [Genres vary]


**Chapter One**

Tatsumi Port Island had been visited by strange weather lately. The beginning of the week had winds up to twenty miles an hour; by Wednesday it had begun to calm down some, only for the temperature to incline by at least ten degrees. Now the air was hot and humid, and the skies have gone dark with storm clouds.

Mother Nature was disturbed by something. A powerful and evil force was making her frantic. As Fuuka Yamagishi packed her bags in her apartments small bedroom thunder boomed, making her pause and flinch every once in a while. The aqua-bluenette heaved a heavy sigh before shoving her last blouse in her suitcase.

_I'll be studying abroad_, Fuuka remembered her words well. _I'll be boarding a plane to America tomorrow. I'm sorry, Mitsuru-san_.

Mitsuri Kirijo, the new head of the Kirijo Group, was a little disappointed that Fuuka was leaving. With the bizarre weather the Empress feared the worst; but Fuuka had already made up her mind. Closing her suitcase, she turned to the framed photo on her bedside nightstand. It was taken almost four years ago, and the boy with blue hair, who changed her life forever, stood in the middle.

"Minato," she whispered the boy's name sadly.

He wasn't dead; perhaps 'sleeping' was an appropriate term. After sealing Nyx and preventing the Fall, Minato Arisato, the Once Chosen Fool, had fallen into a deep sleep; a coma. For four years the Fool hadn't moved or opened his eyes. Fuuka often found herself wondering if he would ever awake.

"Hello, Fuuka."

The Priestess's eyes widened. A breath had been caught in her throat and her heart stopped. The chill sound of the woman's voice made the temperature in the room drop a few degrees. Hesitantly, with cold, sweaty hands, Fuuka turned to meet the golden eyes of a pale, lanky woman in the bedroom doorway. The light from the hall would have made the stranger look god-like hadn't it been for her dark hair and clothes and the evil aura around her. Fuuka could sense a strong power from the woman; she swallowed hard the breath that had been caught in her throat. "Who… Who are you?" she asked, fear dripping from her voice.

The woman let out a low, dark chuckle. A grin etched itself on her lips, and it gave Fuuka a more unsettled feeling. "You know who I am," she said. "Think really hard. If it weren't for you brats this world would have been swallowed by darkness years ago."

The Priestess's gaze fell to the floor. The word 'darkness' should have been the keyword, and yet she still had trouble putting the clues together. And then it struck her, like a bullet the brain; a memory—or a nightmare, long since forgotten—that been triggered. Quietly, with a fearful tone, she whispered the stranger's name. "Nyx."

That malicious smirk; that unsettling, evil aura; it was definitely the goddess of the night—mother of Shadows. "B-but how?" Fuuka stammered. "You look just like a—"

"Human?" the raven haired goddess interrupted. "Yes." She looked down at her thin body in disgust; her hand curled into fists as she held her body in contempt. "A disgusting vessel I must wear temporarily until I am free from that wretched seal."

It annoyed the Priestess to have to listen to Nyx's distaste in her human body. Her face twisted into her own look of disgust, and the smirk returned to the goddess's ghostly lips.

"You'll never be free, Nyx," Fuuka said, venom in her tone of voice. "You don't have the strength." Back talking the deity probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but the Priestess had built up a great bit of confidence over the years. She refused to show any sign of weakness to Nyx, even if she was terrified out of her wits.

Nyx made a 'tsk' sound and shook her head. "I wouldn't count on that, _sweetheart_. The Fool's power is weakening little by little."

Fuuka felt her heart drop into her stomach. "No," she breathed, looking back down at her feet. If the seal were to be broken, the only good thing that would come out of that would be Minato's awakening; but they'd also get the Fall. The world would fall into darkness; overrun by Shadows; there'd be nothing but death.

"Very soon I will be completely free," Nyx went on, "and this world will be mine to control—to destroy."

She sounded more attracted to the 'destroy' part of her plan, and Fuuka instantly became more riled. How soon was 'very soon'? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? How long did they have? The aqua-bluenette was having second thoughts about leaving in the morning; she needed to warn Mitsuru.

"Why are you telling me this?" the Priestess asked. "What do you possibly have to gain by confiding to me? You must know by now that I'll just report this to the others."

"Ah, yes, you're teammates," Nyx shrugged. She didn't seem bothered on bit by Fuuka's intentions. Nyx wondered around the bedroom aimlessly, her jewelry jingling as she moved. When she came to the dresser she found something gleaming in the moonlight. It was a letter opener. Grinning, an idea had struck the goddess. She quietly picked up the dull dagger and hid it behind her back as she turned to face Fuuka once more.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that, child."

Then, just as quickly as the deity arrived, she had moved with the darkness, disappearing from where she stood and reappearing behind the Priestess. There was a flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, and the cool chill of death breathing down Fuuka's neck. She knew she was in trouble, and the moment she turned around deadly, golden hues glared down at her. A dull blade, though still gravely painful, was thrust deep into her chest.

Fuuka let out a shrill cry as she instantly began to feel weak-kneed. Her vision became blurry through her tears. Something warm, which Fuuka instantly recognized as blood, oozed from the wound and through her blouse. As Nyx ripped out the dull letter opener Fuuka fell the floor; bleeding and dying.

"Four years have passed, child," the goddess taunted to the dying Priestess. She dropped the bloodied weapon and stared down at Fuuka as she writhed and gasped for air; Nyx was expressionless. "You had so much time, and you haven't changed a single bit. I told you this to give you an opportunity to take initiative; distract me long enough so you can get in touch with your precious 'friends'. But it seems like you can't even do that right. You're pathetic."

The Priestess said nothing. Her eyes were rolling to the back of her head and eventually they closed for the last time. For a moment or two Nyx stood there, basking in her work.

Her devilish smile returned. "There is one other," she said, pretty much to herself as she stepped over the lifeless corpse of the Priestess. "There is a new Chosen One who can stop me. I wonder what power this Wild Card possesses."

As the power in the entire apartment had finally flickered out Nyx disappeared into the darkness.

* * *

Tokyo, the capital city east of Tatsumi Port Island, had gotten their fair share of the storm. By morning the weather had calmed into a light drizzle. Yu Narukami, who lived in an apartment complex with his parents somewhere in the more urban side of the city, was just now opening his eyes to greet the day.

All things considered, the Fool had slept in pretty late; at least it was much later than he had intended. He sat up in his futon and looked over at the alarm clock sitting on his dresser. It read: 9:48 am. _I should've been awake almost an hour ago_… Yu simply shrugged it off, thinking he might have forgotten to set the alarm.

Just as he was about to get up and get dressed he heard a knock on the door and a familiar voice call for him.

"Yu? Are you awake? Dear, hurry up and come downstairs and eat your breakfast. We don't want to be late."

The voice belonged to his mother. He understood right away what she was worried about; this summer he would be going back to Inaba. He was supposed to get on a train in an hour or so. By the time he was going to respond he figured she had already gone back into the kitchen, so instead he just got dressed and walked out of his room to the kitchen and dining room.

"Good morning, dear," his mother greeted him with a smile.

Yu was about to say greet his mother until his eye caught the TV. His mother had the news on and it was showing the picture of a familiar young woman, with her long aqua hair tied in a braid. The headline read as followed: Fuuka Yamagishi, age 20, murdered in her own home.

"Last night, at approximately 11:22 pm, Fuuka Yamagishi, a 20-year-old college student ready to go abroad to America, was stabbed to death in her own home in Iwatodai, Tatsumi Port Island. The murder weapon, a common letter opener, was left at the crime scene, and the police have yet to identify any suspects."

The news continued, and Yu couldn't help but wonder where he's seen the woman in the photo before; her name rang a bell. "Fuuka Yamagishi," he repeated the woman's name to himself. "…She was murdered?"

"It's a shame, isn't it?" Yu's mother asked as she turned the stove off. Her attention drifted to the TV while her son glanced over at her. "She was so young, too; a whole life ahead of her. What could go through someone's mind before they could commit murder?"

Yu wondered that for a moment, but the news quickly turned to a different story. His mother told him to eat his breakfast once more, and it was only then he remembered they'd be heading to the strain station in a little while. While Fuuka's death still bothered him, and why he couldn't remember where he's seen her before, his remembering that he'd be going back to Inaba made him push it out of his mind quickly.

* * *

The two of them—Yu and his mother—walked through the bustling city together. A small part of the Fool was a little disappointed that his mother wouldn't be accompanying him on the trip, but he pushed this thought to the side. He was used to this by now, honestly. His parents were lawyers so their free time was scarce. Another summer vacation without them was hardly a big deal to him, but one half of his conscience couldn't help but be bothered by it.

They took a taxi to the train station. Most of the time they hadn't said a word to each other; the usual silence. Yu was too distracted by his thoughts and worries to notice, though. _Will something happen if I go there?_ He remembered something Yosuke—his best friend—told him once.

_You're like a disaster magnet, dude._

Was that really true? When the Fool thought about it, when he first came to Inaba he was suddenly tossed into some bizarre murder mystery. A rumor floated around the quiet, urban town about staring into a TV at midnight when it rains. While the story goes 'you'll see your soul mate', what you really see is the next victim who gets thrown into a TV. Those who became well-known through the media suddenly appeared on what the urban legend was known as the Midnight Channel and were kidnapped; tossed into the TV and left for dead.

Once inside the TV, your deepest, darkest secrets make manifest; your Shadow. They reveal and totally bloat your true feelings—the side of you which you so desperately try to hide—in an attempt to make you cower and deny them so they can gain even more power. Long story short, if you were still in the TV world by the time Inaba was shrouded in fog you would die.

The second time he was in Inaba was just a few months ago during Golden Week. Needless to say it was just a harmless vacation, but what happened? He and his friends—whom he befriended the year before during the bizarre murder case—had been thrown yet another mystery. The Midnight Channel was back, but the victim this time turned out to be a humanoid machine named Labrys. While Rise, Kanji, and Teddie had all gone missing (though Kanji just fallen head-first into his TV at home) it was Labrys's Shadow who was behind everything… or so they thought.

Whoever had kidnapped Labrys to begin with and threw her into the TV was the true mastermind. Along the way the Investigation Team met and befriended Mitsuru Kirijo, Akihiko Sanada, and Aigis (another humanoid weapon—an anti-shadow suppression unit to be exact—just like Labrys), who were inside the TV to retrieve Labrys. They were fellow Persona users who, while unfamiliar with the TV world, had much experience dealing with the abominations called Shadows.

Mitsuru insisted that the younger Persona-users forget about everything that had happened, but Yu and his friends had other ideas. They were going to find out why this happened to Labrys… However, their investigation didn't last long. Labrys had gone back to Tatsumi Port Island with Mitsuru and the others, and they had no way of investigating since the Midnight Channel no longer appeared. There was this, and Yu had to go back to the capital.

So it seemed like every time the Worldly Fool stepped foot in Inaba disaster falls. As the taxi finally pulled up the train station and Yu and his mother stepped out he couldn't help but wonder if something else was going to happen; if some trial would fall upon him and his friends once more. He was summoned to the Velvet Room, where a strange man named Igor and his beautiful assistant Margaret resided, both times, so if it just so happened again he'd take it as a hint.

That's what scared him.

His mother must have asked him a thousand times if he knew which train to get on, and a thousand times he would say she shouldn't worry about it. The whole time she was clinging to his arm, like usual. They found the correct platform and the two of them were at their final goodbyes for the summer.

"Are you sure you'll be alright on your own?" his mother asked worriedly, a faint smile on her lips.

Yu rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless. His mother was always like this. No matter how many times they departed she'd always have to ask the same thing; she'd always have a strong grip on either his hand or his arm until it finally time to let go. "I'll be fine, mom," he assured her once again. "You ask me that every time I get on a train, or a plane, or when I leave for school. I'll be fine. Don't worry."

Her face distorted into one of those 'I'm-your-mother-I'll-worry-all-I-want' looks, hidden well behind a smile and a faint laugh. They announced that the train to Yaso-Inaba would be departing in five minutes, so she pulled her son in for one last hug, in which he was happy to oblige. "I love you."

Those three words always stung for some reason. Yu's inner thoughts cringed, but he still wore a smile for his mother. "I love you, too."

He pulled away from her and gave a small wave before boarding the train. Even as he walked through the isle and took his seat he could still see his mother, smiling at him and refusing to even budge until he was out of sight; then she'd have no reason to stay. As distant as he usually felt with his mother he knew just how close he was to her. Often, it hurt to have to see her face fade as the train took off.

"_Now leaving for Yaso-Inaba. Yaso-Inaba."_

**A/N: I know a lot of people hate author notes, so I'm promising you now I won't be doing it often. I'll be honest with you right now I have never beaten Persona 3—in any form. (i.e. the original, FES, P3P.) Most of my knowledge is coming from **_**Persona 4 Arena**_** and my sister, who has beaten P3. **

**Nyx is clearly my own interpretation, seeing as—to my knowledge—it was Nyx Avatar who played the bigger role.**

**I would also like to apologize for any OOC I might make, and I would love to know how you all felt about this chapter. All critics are welcome, appreciated, and encouraged. I will be incorporating pairings (whether they be obvious or insinuated) so if you'd like to know what they are please do not hesitate to ask, though I do hope that if they are not to your liking they don't stop you from continuing reading. **

**Thank you.**

**Cat**


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